It was the night birds that woke her.  Unaccustomed to the 
treble tones in the dark of night, the sharp, repeating 
melody had cut into her sleep.  She stretched languidly under 
the bunched weight of several wool blankets, curling her toes 
against the surprisingly soft nap.  The banked fire cast a 
faint orange luminescence against the rough hewn cedar walls 
of the room.  Drowsily, she watched the play of shadow and 
light, listening peacefully to the avian accompaniment, and 
the steady rhythm of her own breathing.  Her limbs were still 
pleasantly heavy with slumber, requiring several minutes of 
contemplation to determine if adjusting herself to a more 
comfortable position would really be worth the effort.  
Finally, the nagging twinge in her lower back won the debate, 
and gathering the blankets into her neck, she rolled toward 
the glowing embers on the hearth.  A shadowed figure sat 
silent and utterly still, watching her.  She gasped.

"Jerry?" she asked, when the first rush of adrenaline had 
spent itself.

Without preamble, he began speaking in a hushed, spellbinding 
tone.  "I too believe in a world beyond this one," he began.  
"As the world of the spirit has fallen out of favor with your 
people, so has it grown with mine."  He paused, the silence 
lending import to his words.  "There is a prophecy." 

Rising, he crossed to the sofa, and perched himself 
delicately beside her hips.  Scully pressed herself further 
into the back of the sofa, as inconspicuously as she was 
able, but Jerry smiled sadly as he noticed the small 
movement.  His voice lowered further still, barely a whisper.  
Obligingly, the night birds fell silent.

"The prophecy tells of one of your people, one who lives to 
bridge the gap between the end of the old ways, and the start 
of the new.  It tells of one of my people, who betrays the 
old ways at great cost."  In a remarkably human gesture, he 
lifted his eyes skyward seeking strength for his tale, or 
respite from her distrustful gaze.  "I feel we are on a path 
together," he murmured, reaching for her hand.  Sensing the 
motion, she pulled both hands under the blanket.  "Please," 
he implored, his palm up and suppliant.  "I want to give you 
a gift."

Hesitantly, she extracted one hand from the safety of her 
woolen cocoon, and reached for him.  For some reason, she was 
surprised to find his grip warm.  "I am not as old as you, 
but we do have longer natural lives than your people.  Few of 
our capacities are known to you."  Gently, he covered the 
hand he held with his other.  "Our lives are long, but our 
memories are longer.  I share the experiences of my 
ancestors," he explained.  "My grandfather, for want of a 
better term, once met you."  Slowly, so as not to cause 
alarm, Jerry's face morphed from the youthful expression he 
normally maintained, to an older visage.  Narrow faced, 
serious, with close cropped gray hair.  "You knew him as 
Jeremiah.  Your people would say that he 'went native.'"  He 
chuckled faintly.  "My people seem to have a propensity 
toward doing so.  His strongest memory, before he died, was 
of the man you spoke of tonight.  The memory was passed to my 
father, and then to me."  He hesitated once more, needing to 
make the offer, and yet afraid the gesture might be refused.  
"I can show him to you."

Scully sat silent, stunned, not certain how she could bear 
seeing what she could never again have, not certain she could 
bear to forgo the chance.  Her body seemed to make the choice 
for her, while her mind reeled, her head jerking forward 
twice, in hard, quick nods.  "Close your eyes," Jerry 
entreated.  Slowly, she allowed the lids to fall, found 
herself gripping his hands tightly, betraying her anxiety.

A moment passed before long forgotten dulcet tones whispered 
her name.

"Scully.  Scully you can open your eyes now.  Please, Scully, 
look at me."

By an act of will, she hauled her lids up, eagerness and 
apprehension warring within her.  Jerry sat passively before 
her, allowing her to react as she would to his form.  It was 
not the Mulder of her last memories, the old, dear companion 
she had outlived.  It was the Mulder of her youth, and of her 
recent dreams, virile and vibrant and strong.  She raised her 
hand to his face, pulling him forward into the fire's glow.  
Hesitantly, she ran trembling fingertips from his ears, 
across his stubbled cheeks, over his lips.  Her heart 
suddenly pounding in her chest, she stood, and drew him up 
toward the window, needing to see him in the brighter light 
of the full moon.  He followed unresistingly, standing docile 
and passive as she positioned him, waiting while she studied 
the play of shadows off his strong jaw, the glint of milky 
light against his thick, silky hair.  Thoughtfully, Jerry 
bent slightly, bringing his face level with her shorter 
stature, so that she could see him more clearly.   Her mouth 
formed a tiny "oh" at the memories brought flooding back by 
the gesture that Mulder had made so often in their lives.  
Never taking the advantage of his height to subdue her, 
always in their most intense moments dropping to meet her eye 
to eye, reinforcing their equality.  They came fast then, 
memories of joy and terror, determination and tenderness, 
optimism and despair, rage and triumph, overwhelming in their 
volume and intensity.  He caught her as she angled forward, 
returned her fierce embrace as solidly as he dared.

"Mulder," she whispered.

"I'm not he," Jerry answered, regretfully.  He pulled her 
tighter into his embrace, lending her the support she seemed 
to crave.  "But I believe he has never left you."

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, "so sorry I forgot you."

"You can let go of that guilt, now, Scully," he whispered, a 
warm breath in her ear.  "You never forgot.  The memories 
have only been dormant, waiting until they were needed.  If 
you had forgotten, the memories couldn't be returning now.  
It's ok.  I'm sure he knows."

They remained so for countless minutes, swaying in front of 
the moonlit window.  Finally, Scully gave a mighty sniff, and 
pushed herself away.  Her composure restored, she took both 
his hands, and smiled up into the face of her long absent 
lover, her eyes glistening.

"Thank you, Jerry.  Thank you for giving him back to me," she 
said, earnestly.

"He was yours all along," Jerry replied.  Gently, he began 
backing toward the sofa, drawing her with him.  "You should 
probably try to finish sleeping," he suggested.  

As she rearranged herself on the big old sofa, Jerry turned 
to leave.  She laid a hand on his arm, stilling him.  
"Please," she asked, "you've done so much already, but, will 
you stay, like that, until I fall asleep?"

Jerry nodded, and settled himself into one of the chairs by 
the hearth.  Scully settled herself, gazing at the face of 
the man she missed, until the face by the hearth faded into 
the one in her dreams.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, at first light, David and Scully set out 
for Seattle.  Dr. Luder's estate was far more remote than 
David had expected.  The tube and train rides had been short 
and uneventful, and walking the final leg hadn't seemed like 
an unusual suggestion, until she had led them off the end of 
a quiet cul-de-sac, and began hiking beyond the cluster of 
homes.  The trail head had been clearly marked, and at first 
the trail was wide, obviously a recreational destination for 
the local residents.  But it had narrowed and begun to climb, 
and toward the end, David could only trust in Scully's memory 
and sense of direction, after all the obvious signs of the 
trail vanished.  Now they were deep in a primeval forest, 
threading between enormous redwood trunks and parting broad, 
damp ferns with their knees.  The house, when it appeared, 
took him by surprise.  Built against a steeply rising 
hillside, the dark brown siding and tan tiled roof, moss 
lining the overhanging eaves, blended seamlessly with the 
surrounding terrain.  A shaft of sunlight angled through the 
dense canopy, glinting sharply from one of the few small, 
high windows.  The undergrowth and accumulated redwood 
needles crunched underfoot as they approached the entrance to 
the small cabin.  Though it appeared rustic, the locking 
mechanism was modern and sophisticated.  Scully placed her 
palm in a smooth, molded receptacle, which glowed coolly at 
her touch.  A tiny lancet darted out, releasing a single drop 
of blood from her fingertip, sucking it through minute tubing 
and into the mechanism itself.  A moment passed, then a faint 
hiss could be heard as the seal around the front door 
receded.  Scully reached out, and finished the procedure by 
turning an ordinary doorknob.

"Welcome to my home," she said, ushering David inside.

That the home was built back into the earth was apparent from 
the outside.  It was an unusual architecture, but not unheard 
of, and had compelling advantages for temperature control and 
security.  Even so, David was surprised by the size and 
comfort of the entry room.  Such homes tended to be small, as 
a result of the effort involved in excavating them.  He 
swiveled slowly on his heel, taking in the clean lines of the 
spartan furnishings, and the low profile of a futon through 
an open bedroom door.

Dr. Samantha Luder had been something of a legend in her own 
time, as much for her scientific accomplishments as for her 
eccentricities.  She had a reputation as a recluse that far 
outstripped the one Dr. Charles was gradually creating for 
herself, and while the remoteness of her home supported that, 
David was perplexed how she could have accomplished any sort 
of science here.  He wandered around the room, dragging his 
fingers along the furnishings, pausing to poke his head into 
a small kitchen.

"You come back here fairly often?" he finally asked.

"What makes you ask?" Scully replied.

"No dust," he said, examining his fingertips.  He wiped them 
on his pants leg reflexively, even though they were clean.

"Good eye," she acknowledged approvingly.

"Where's the lab?" he finally asked.  Scully angled her chin 
toward the narrow bedroom door.  Curious, he passed inside, 
briefly noting the antique styling of the bureau and 
freestanding wardrobe, before his eyes fell on another 
doorway beyond them both.  "Through there?" he asked.  Scully 
nodded.  

He felt curiously disappointed at the sight that greeted him.  
The mysterious, reclusive, brilliant Dr. Luder's lab was -- 
ordinary.  Small, clean, organized, the equipment a bit out 
of date, there was nothing about it that suggested the 
prolific discovery it had silently witnessed.

"Have a seat, David," Scully said quietly, reading his 
expression, "and I'll help the walls talk to you."  He 
settled onto a stool while she gathered items from an 
overhead cabinet.  He was puzzled when she returned with a 
small metal tray, a few gleaming instruments and a short 
stack of gauze contained within it.

"What's that for?" he asked.

She reached for him, without answering, matter-of-factly 
sliding open the buttons on his shirt one by one.

David froze to his seat, his eyes wide, not comprehending the 
meaning of her actions.  His mind raced, desperately trying 
to fathom an explanation for her uncharacteristic behavior.  
The backs of her nimble fingers fluttered against his stomach 
just above his waistband as she freed the last button, and he 
was assailed by flood of emotions -- bewilderment, 
embarrassment, shame -- triggered by his completely 
unexpected burst of arousal.  This was Dr. Charles, -- *Dr. 
Charles* -- she couldn't possibly intend...  He felt suddenly 
contemptible for his reaction, made an abortive effort to 
rise and back away that was thwarted when the stool caught up 
against the counter after only a step, causing him to fall 
back onto its seat, hard.    She pinned him with a 
penetrating stare that made it clear he was to sit still, and 
reached out with both hands to ease the shirt from his 
shoulders.  His heart pounded absurdly in his chest, burning 
with the instinct to fight or flee, and to his adrenaline 
addled brain, she positively loomed as she stepped into his 
personal space, and lowered her mouth to his ear.

"Calm down," she whispered

"D- Dr. Charles," he stammered, but stopped when she laid a 
hand across his lips, backing away far enough for him to see 
her shake her head.  Her whisper was barely audible, even 
though she returned her mouth so close to his ear that he 
could feel the humidity of her breath.  "Right now you *must* 
trust me," she stated emphatically.  "Do not make a sound, 
and try to sit very still."  She backed away again, checking 
his face for understanding.  He nodded hesitantly.   She 
leaned in to whisper once more.  "I'm sorry I don't have an 
anesthetic, David.  I'll try to be quick."  His eyes grew 
impossibly wider as he processed her apology, and she gave 
him a sympathetic smile.

Quickly, proficiently, she snapped on a pair of medical 
gloves, and moistened several gauze pads with a sterile 
solution, smearing it liberally onto the left side of David's 
chest, a handspan below his collarbone.  He shivered slightly 
at the sensation of cold produced by the rapidly evaporating 
liquid.  In spite of himself, he couldn't help flinching away 
when she returned with a scalpel in her hand, the edge of the 
counter digging painfully into his back as he struggled to 
keep himself seated.  She raised her free hand to his eyes, 
her fingers warm against his lids through the dusty texture 
of the gloves, encouraging him not to watch.  

He felt the press of her systematically probing fingers, but 
not the initial incision, as the scalpel was sharpened to an 
edge that could be measured in molecules, and was free of 
imperfections.  But moments after he became aware of the warm 
liquid flow of blood down his chest, the wound began to burn.  
He clenched his teeth, sucking air past barely parted lips.  
A heap of gauze was pressed into his palm, and gloved fingers 
positioned his hand just below the opening, where it would 
absorb the flow.  He felt the lips of cut being pulled wide, 
and a sudden, sharp jerk of something being ripped from 
muscle tissue.  He gasped, his head swimming.  

"Almost done," she whispered, "hang on."

He heard the faint tink of metal against glass, then felt the 
edges of the wound being drawn up together, swiped with more 
fluid and salve, and covered and bound with what felt like a 
standard first-aid dermal patch.  Closed and sealed from the 
air, the edge of the pain dulled, and he exhaled the deep 
breath he'd been holding, panting heavily, like a spent 
runner.  He heard the snap of gloves being removed, then felt 
a delicate touch retrieving his shirt from where it remained 
pooled around his rigid wrists, pulling it gently back over 
his shoulders and into position.  He only opened his eyes 
when he felt a light touch across his lips.  Scully stood 
before him, concern etched clearly in her face.  "OK?" she 
mouthed.  He nodded.  "Shh," she mimed, one vertical finger 
in front of her face.   She placed the small glass specimen 
jar into a drawer in the lab bench, along with her watch, 
then heaved at the corner of the heavy furnishing.  After 
overcoming the initial inertia, the bench moved easily aside, 
revealing a locking mechanism in floor, every bit as complex 
as that on the main entrance.  Quietly she repeated the 
identification routine, and this time the hiss was followed 
by the appearance of a narrow stairwell, descending straight 
down into the earth.  She gestured for David to precede her, 
and once in the stairwell herself, reached up hooking her 
hands around grips built into the underside of the lab bench, 
shoved it back into place over the opening.  

They descended for at least a story, the unmistakably cool 
moist air of a cave becoming more apparent with each step.  
When Scully touched the metal plate that engaged the main 
lights in the cavern, David gasped.  The light revealed an 
immense lab, larger, even, than the main facility at 
Southeast University, framed out in aluminum and plexiglass.  

"This is where we came," she began without preamble, "when we 
stopped running."  David's jaw hung slightly slack at the 
enormity of the cavern, and Scully smiled a bit to herself at 
his expression.  "We found it accidentally, and at first we 
lived here, off of rations of preserved foods that we would 
gather from uninhabited towns, on scavenging expeditions.  
But it wasn't really a viable way to live -- it wasn't like 
being underground at NORAD.  It was dark, and damp, and Emily 
hated it.  It wasn't long before we realized we needed to 
establish ourselves above ground, but we weren't ready to 
join the relocation that was just beginning.  There aren't 
any roads up here, and with the climb, almost no one ever 
even passed by."  She chuckled with an unanticipated memory.  
"I think the only thing even more unexpected than discovering 
the reality of alien life was the notion of Mulder and I 
becoming farmers.  But that's what we did.  About another 
five miles north northeast from here we found a remote ranch, 
abandoned, and with arable land.  I planted my first garden 
up on this mountain."  She paused, surprised at the clarity 
with which old memories were returning.  "Come on," she said, 
changing the subject, "you wanted to see the lab."

"How did you get all this down here?" he asked, his head 
swiveling to take in the long bench, the racks of specimens, 
the old equipment.  "And why?"

"We always kept this place a secret, right from the start.  
You have to understand, we didn't know if it was really over.  
We scavenged and hoarded whatever we could, documented as 
much of my research as we were able.  We thought we might 
have to start again, and that this might be the new 
stronghold."

"You built this lab after the wars?" he asked, astonished.

"Oh my, no.  After the wars we were too busy surviving to 
build -- we just collected.  And we couldn't generate nearly 
this much power at the time."

"I didn't think the grid came out to places this remote," he 
commented.

"It doesn't," she confirmed.  "This is geothermal.  Mulder 
actually tapped the first well himself.  Farther back in the 
east arm of the cavern we found hot springs.  Extremely hot.  
There was a lot more abandoned technology just lying around 
in those days, and he had a lot of time to teach himself.  We 
helped ourselves to a small turbine from an abandoned power 
plant, diesel drilling equipment, and started poking holes 
until we hit a steam vent.  It was crude, and prone to 
failures, but it worked.  It wasn't until years later...  I 
told you how I'd wandered after I started outliving my 
family.  I found myself back here, eventually.  It was here, 
among all the things we'd gathered that I realized that the 
knowledge we'd accumulated needed to be reclaimed, and 
gradually decided to rejoin the living."

"I don't think I've ever seen off-grid power this stable," 
David observed, "except maybe in Denver."

It was one of the hardships of living inland, in the 
mountains.  Besides the snow, the terrain, the climate, those 
who chose to live away from the coasts had to deal with 
generating all their own power.  It tended to keep the inland 
population small.

Scully nodded at the observation.  "The inlanders are a 
reclusive, independent lot, aren't they?" she commented 
admiringly.  "As a matter of fact that's where I went, to 
find the expertise, and the discretion, I needed to power 
this place, without a lot of questions.  I built the first 
house right after the crew left, to disguise the opening, and 
no one besides me has been down here since that day, until 
now."  She glanced at his chest apologetically.  "That's part 
of the reason I removed your tracker.  I'm not willing to 
broadcast the existence of this cavern.  I'm sorry to have 
had to make the experience so abrupt."

He had momentarily forgotten the impromptu surgery in the 
wonder of the cavern, but now his attention returned fully to 
the dressed wound on his chest.  "You extracted my tracker?" 
he gasped, indignant.  "How could you do that without even 
asking me first?"

"I'm sorry," she repeated.  "Some of them capture audio.  I 
couldn't know which kind you had, and I couldn't really 
discuss it with you without possibly revealing that you were 
about to become untrackable to the tracking system itself."

"We're not *supposed* to be untrackable!" he exclaimed, 
beginning to pace.  "I can't believe you did that and didn't 
even give me a choice!"

"You can still carry it with you, David.  I can install it 
into a ring, or a watch, with standard medical dermal 
electrodes, and it will still broadcast your vitals every bit 
as accurately as it did when it was embedded.  But you'll be 
able to leave it behind when you want to, which you could 
never do before.  A *choice*," she emphasized the word, "is 
exactly what I've given you.  One you've never had before."

"But..." he protested weakly.

"You might ask yourself, David, why it is that you feel that 
way.  About not being untrackable.  Do you feel like you're 
being disobedient?  Like you're going to get in trouble?  
Does that really make sense?  What kind of conditioning led 
you to that attitude?  What does that imply?"

She waited while his mouth worked silently for a moment.

"Well, while you're thinking about it," she said finally, "we 
should do what we came for."

"What is that, exactly?"

"I need to retrieve the data on the vaccine from the 
computers here, for one thing."

"You couldn't have done that over the nets?"

"These computers aren't on the nets, David.  Anything 
connected is vulnerable, by definition.  And we don't control 
the nets.  Keeping this information confidential 200 years 
ago saved our race.  Even now, broadcasting it to the 
population it defeated would seem foolhardy."

David shook his head, and sank back against the counter.

"I also need to verify your level of immunity.  I'm not sure 
how well the treatment has persisted over the years.  
Immunities to infectious agents can be lost after several 
generations without exposure, and we've been isolated from 
the Gray population for a very long time."  She produced a 
lancet and handed it to him.  "This time I only need a few 
drops of blood.  And I'll let you do it yourself, when you 
feel ready."

He held the lancet up in front of his face, considering.  
"What if I'm not immune?" he asked.  

"I can synthesize enough of the injectable version of the 
vaccine to treat you before we leave."

"What are you getting me into?" he breathed, apprehension 
settling heavily in his stomach.

She considered him sympathetically for a moment.  "I don't 
know yet, David.  I just want to be prepared."  She opened a 
cabinet, revealing an old-fashioned safe, and quickly wheeled 
in a five-digit combination.  The interior revealed a cache 
of ancient firearms, which she ignored, opting to retrieve 
two small, chrome-colored cylindrical items.

"Hold it away from you, like this," she demonstrated, handing 
him one of the cylinders.  "Do you feel the notch?"  He 
rubbed the cool metal quizzically with his thumb, was 
startled when his motion caused a long, dangerous looking 
spike to emerge.  He looked between the spike, and Scully, 
questioning.

"It's the only way to kill them," she said gravely.  Reaching 
around him, she touched the notch above the large vertebrae 
at the base of his neck, the touch light but deliberate.  "It 
has to be inserted right here," she said quietly, "or it's 
ineffective."

"Kill who?  I don't want to kill anyone."

"I hope you won't have to David," she told him solemnly, 
retrieving her hand.  "But just in case.  It's how you can 
kill the aliens.  It works on Smiths and Grays both, but you 
won't get close enough to a Gray to use it.  They hear you 
coming.  You know they're telepathic, don't you?"

"Can we hear them?" he asked, feeling surreal.

"If they want you to," she shrugged.  "But only then.  We 
have the DNA for telepathy, but it's dormant."

"We don't," he objected automatically.

"We do," she insisted.  "David I know you think human 
genomics is a completely mature science, but how much 
attention has ever been paid to the intergenic regions?  The 
'junk' DNA, really?  The understanding of the active regions 
*is* very mature, but anything that doesn't have an 
observable effect on life or disease really has been largely 
ignored."

He looked again at the device in his hand, manipulated it 
until it closed again.  It was heavier than it seemed it 
should be, and despite being held in his overwarm hand for 
several minutes, the metal still felt cool against his palm.

"We didn't make this, did we?" he concluded.

"No," Scully confirmed.  "It's an alien weapon."

David's brows knit tightly for a moment while he considered 
the circumstances under which the device had probably been 
acquired.  Combat, possibly hand to hand.  Taken from the 
body of a dead...  He expelled his stale breath in an 
explosive sigh.

"I don't know if I can do this, Dr. Charles," he said.  "You 
keep asking me to trust you, but..." he gestured with the 
device.  "Jerry's a Smith," he said helplessly.

 "I need you to trust my experience, David.  But I need you 
to recognize the trust I've given you, as well.  No one in 
the world knows of this place but you.  No one in the world 
had known the truth about me for over a hundred years, until 
you.  No one else on the planet holds what you hold.  I trust 
you to do the right thing with all of this when the time 
comes.  You have to trust yourself.  We have to trust each 
other," she emphasized, her voice low.

Their eyes locked for interminable minutes, while he weighed 
her words.  Finally, he broke the gaze, looking once more at 
the weapon he held, before slipping it into his pocket.  With 
his empty hand, he retrieved the lancet from the counter 
where he had set it.  "I guess we'd better get started," he 
said. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

David's immunity had not been just weak, it was nearly 
absent.  The discovery troubled Scully more than she wanted 
to acknowledge.  She'd been brisk and matter of fact about 
synthesizing a batch of the vaccine from raw materials 
carefully preserved in the underground lab, inoculating 
David, and sending him upstairs for a nap.  The initial 
effects tended to be draining.

While he slept, she reviewed her old research, wishing just 
this once for the gift of eidetic memory.  As far as she 
knew, this was the only truly disconnected computer system on 
the planet, and she wasn't willing to expose this science by 
transferring it to her pad, or to the computer systems back 
at her lab in the southeast.  And yet, she both needed to 
return there, and needed to continue working with her old 
data.  In the end she compromised, downloading the 
information into an ancient laptop computer, incompatible 
with everything modern.  She hoped it would be safe enough.  
That done, she tested her own immunity, but was unsurprised 
to find it unchanged.  Whatever mechanism caused her 
longevity also seemed to keep her in a sort of biological 
stasis.  It wasn't just that her wounds healed quickly, every 
biological change seemed to reverse itself, restoring her to 
the condition she presumably was in at the time she became 
immortal.  Not that she could remember the circumstances.  
But although she'd given David a terse lie about her disdain 
for non-medical bioengineering, the truth was, she'd tried 
several times to take the relatively innocuous genetic 
therapy to remove her predilection for sunburning, and it 
simply hadn't taken.  She spent a few more hours synthesizing 
a compound that would react with the antigen, and imbued a 
few dozen medical testing strips with the reagent.  It was 
crude, but it would function as a low tech field test.  She 
put the strips in a small, cylindrical, airtight container, 
and added it to the bag with the laptop, along with a lancing 
device.  Finally she returned to the equipment that had 
synthesized the small dose of inoculant for David, and 
feeling grateful for the advances in modern biochemical 
automation, retrieved the vial which now contained several 
dozen more doses.  She put the vial in a protective casing, 
and added it, along with several syringes, to the bag.  
Carefully, methodically, she circumnavigated the lab, 
shutting down and putting away the slightly aged equipment, 
turning off lights.  At last, she returned to where the bag 
sat, and paused, hand on the zipper, considering the 
contents.  It seemed so inadequate.  She didn't know what was 
coming, but if it was like last time, and if everyone's 
immunity had deteriorated as thoroughly as David's had, she 
doubted in her ability to forestall disaster.  Last time 
she'd had information, as piecemeal as it had been, and 
allies.  And Mulder.  Now she had only a dark premonition, 
David, and a population every bit as disbelieving as there 
had been 200 years earlier.  Not disbelieving in the alien 
existence, this time, but certainly disbelieving in any 
threat.  If she couldn't put the pieces together, she stood a 
very real chance of being the last human standing, for all 
eternity.  She sighed, pulling the zipper shut and the bag 
onto her shoulder.  It was far too light a package to do any 
real good, she feared, and yet it was the heaviest of 
burdens.

David was sleeping fitfully when she returned aboveground, 
sweating lightly with a slight fever.  The inoculant caused 
flu-like symptoms for a few days, she remembered, and so she 
left him alone, while she returned to the public, above-
ground lab, and set to work on his tracker.  The work was 
delicate, microscopic, but in a few hours, she had modified 
an expensive bio-sensing wristwatch, the kind used by serious 
athletes, to feed its data into the tracking chip.  She 
returned the modified wafer to the casing, making certain not 
to damage the new tracings, and snapped it closed.  It was a 
unisex design, but it was small, something she'd originally 
intended for her own use.  She hoped he would like it, 
anyway, then found herself startled to have considered that.  
It was a necessity, really, not a gift.  She hoped the 
absence of biodata being transmitted by the locater hadn't 
persisted long enough to be flagged, and she slipped it onto 
his wrist while he still slept.

It was late when they finally returned to his grandmother's 
house.  David had been groggy and quiet on the hike back to 
the train station, following her lead in a steady, automatic 
way, and he had fallen back to sleep as soon as they were 
seated in the tube.  Once home, he'd given Nana a perfunctory 
kiss on the cheek, rejected, with a bit of a green tinge, her 
offer of a late dinner, and retired directly to bed.  Scully 
herself was famished, and accepted a plate of warm mutton 
stew and two thick sliced of bread.  "Where's Jerry?" she 
asked, when the hard edge of her hunger had abated.

"He went off somewhere today," Nana answered.  "I don't know, 
really.  He does that from time to time.  He always comes 
back."

Scully processed that information.  She really was becoming 
torn about the shape-shifting alien.  In all the time she'd 
known him, he'd been nothing but respectful and deferential, 
as he was this morning when she explained that she needed to 
make this particular journey with David alone.  But she 
suspected he'd been unhappy about it, possibly thinking that 
last night's gift had changed things between them.  She 
sighed.  She couldn't entirely let go of her distrust of the 
any of the aliens, no matter how innocuous and courteous 
their behavior.  After 200 years practicing secrecy and 
distrust, that kind of studied respect set off her alarms.  
Still, his behavior the night before had seemed sincere, not 
manipulative.  She sighed.  Not that she believed her 
feelings alone were an accurate barometer of anything... she 
was so out of touch with using them.  It was still true that 
Jerry kept everything he knew about his people, and about the 
Grays, secret.  Trust was a two way street, and though his 
behavior had always been irreproachable, he offered her 
nothing on which to pin any trust she might have for him.  At 
least, on a matter as serious as this.  And now he was gone, 
no explanation, and evidently this was something he did with 
some regularity.  And he knew who she really was.

She pushed her plate away, her appetite gone.

"I wondered if we might talk for a while," Nana said, taking 
the offending dish away.

Scully was tired, but felt it would be rude to deny her 
hostess' request.  She nodded, forcing out a weary smile.

"I hardly know where to start," Nana offered.

"I find the beginning is often a good choice," Scully said, 
echoing Nana's words from the night before.

Nana smiled, recognizing the reference.  "Indeed it is, 
child," she agreed.   Rather than speaking, though, she rose 
from the kitchen table and began busying herself making tea.  
It was always easier to talk while she was busy, she'd found, 
and while she hadn't wanted to disturb Scully's dinner, she 
always preferred talking over food.  "I lay awake quite some 
time last night, thinking over the story you told us," she 
began, filling the tea kettle with water.  "It must have been 
a horrible time... I'm sure I can't imagine."  She turned a 
dial, and a ceramic disc in the counter began to glow.  "I do 
know about losing a child though," she continued, placing the 
kettle on the orange ring, "my son, David's father, died 
building the transatlantic tube."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Scully said.

"Yes well, it was a long time ago," Nana answered casually, 
although her voice sounded thick.  "But what you said about 
your daughter, Emily, it touched me because of that.  And it 
got me to thinking, too, because we have a few Emilys in the 
family.  I had a great aunt named Emily, and a second 
cousin."  She pulled a few small, fragrant boxes out of a 
cabinet near the stove.  "Orange Pekoe or Earl Gray?"

"Earl Gray, please," Scully said.

"Yes well, from there I got to thinking about the rest of 
your family, all the names you've taken over the years.  And 
I know they're common names, but I realized that every one of 
them has been in my family.  My mother was named Margaret.  
Honey or cream?"

"Both please."

"We didn't have a 'Mulder' though," she frowned.  "Was that 
your husband's given name?"

Scully smiled at the term.  Husband.  They'd never been 
married in any official capacity.  Before the wars, there 
hadn't ever really been time, and afterward, there was no 
ceremony that could offer any meaning above the bonds they 
had already forged through disaster, and through survival.  
They were married in their hearts, though, and it was enough.

"His given name was Fox," she answered.

"Oh.  Well, maybe I'm wrong then.  We don't have one of those 
either."

Something tickled at the back of Scully's head.

"What are you getting at?"

The tea kettle barely began to whistle, a low, hollow 
sounding moan, and Nana picked it up and poured it over the 
loose leaves in the bottom of each mug, carrying them 
carefully to the table.

"My grandmother doted on me when I was a little girl.  She 
used to tell me all kinds of stories from when she was young.  
Stories about rebuilding the coastal cities, and all the 
adventures they had trying to get things from here to there.  
Watching the first major tubes be built.  You never hear that 
talked about anymore, have you noticed?"  She blew on the 
tea.  "She told stories about our family, too.  Stories about 
her own beautiful and sad grandma, with the coppery hair."

Scully suddenly knew where Nana was going, and for some 
reason resisted the knowledge.  She didn't know why, but she 
didn't want it to be true.

"I thought perhaps we might be related," Nana said, quietly.  
"We have all the other names, but we don't have a Fox."

Scully mentally conceded the possibility, not understanding 
the cold dismay the thought gave her.

"He hated his given name.  He never used it.  He never passed 
it on," she said tonelessly.

"Well, then, maybe it is true."  She blew on her tea, waiting 
for a reaction, but Scully seemed far away.  "David tells me 
you favor antique books," she said, in an apparent non-
sequitor.   "I have a few myself.  Nothing feels quite the 
same as paper and ink, does it?"

She left the kitchen for a few minutes.  Scully sipped her 
tea, setting it back down when Nana returned.  "This is a 
wonderful story," Nana said.  "We've been passing this book 
down from eldest daughter to eldest daughter for generations.  
Although I suppose I'll have to give it David now.  He's all 
I've got."  She flipped the book open to the endpages, just 
inside the worn hardbound back cover.  "It's not complete, 
but there are parts of a family tree penned in here.  I've 
added as much as I know, but I don't think anyone tried 
keeping records until my grandmother started."

Scully stared at the branches, tiny notations indicating 
names and birthdates, marriages and children.  "And there's 
something else, inside the front cover," Nana added quietly, 
handing the book over.

Scully flipped to the front, the title page with its bold 48 
point text leaping up at her.  Moby Dick.  And in a neat 
tight hand in the upper right hand corner of the page, the 
initials:  D.K.S.

-------------------------------------------------------------

"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

She laid awake long into the night considering the aptness of 
that phrase to her life.  Her father's pet name had been 
wrong, in the end.  She tossed uncomfortably on the big sofa, 
remembering him.  Remembering!  So much was flooding back to 
her.  She wondered what he would think about her strange 
reluctance to embrace her rediscovered family.  Family had 
been the most important thing once, sacrosanct.  And in spite 
of the pain of survival she had always blamed for her need to 
leave, ultimately she had left them voluntarily, by her own 
will.  She should have been stronger.  Ahab would have been 
disappointed.

Time had washed over her interminably, wearing away the rough 
edges of the loss, and then the erasing the loss of the loss, 
until her emotions were as smooth and featureless as a river 
stone.  For two lifetimes she had contented herself with 
science, and reacquainted herself with God, if only because 
he was the only companion she could conjure older than 
herself.

But over the last year it had all begun coming undone.  The 
fear and loss returning first, with the advent of her 
nightmares, the memories reemerging, haltingly, but with the 
relentlessness of the tides.  And now, the responsibility.  
She had a family.  David was her four times great grandson.  
She was of them.  

"And I alone have survived to tell thee," she murmured.  She 
desperately hoped it wasn't prophetic.  Who would be left to 
tell, if her nightmares came true? 

From the room at the end of the hall, she could hear the 
throaty braying of David coughing, a side effect of the 
changes his body was undergoing as the vaccine took effect, 
selectively reprogramming isolated sequences of his genetic 
makeup.  Only the necessity of it abated her guilt, now, as 
it had then.  In a small but real sense he would no longer be 
who he had been before.  Such techniques were a staple of 
modern medicine, which had long ago discarded any ethical 
dilemma about using them in pursuing the cure of disease, but 
the changes they wrought were so primal, so fundamental, that 
she felt the shadow of hubris in her heart when she herself 
applied them.  She was changing who he was.  And who he 
was... who he was, was Mulder's grandson.  Looking back, she 
realized she must have known on that first day when he had 
come skidding into class, late and flustered.  It was clear 
now, with the reawakened memory of her dreams and Jerry's 
gift, the resemblance.  Powerful stuff, the Mulder lineage.  
The thought made her smile, if only briefly.  She wished he 
were still alive to meet this boy.  They would have relished 
each other, challenged one another's intellect.  David would 
have made Mulder proud.  The thought eased her somewhat, 
reframed Nana and David, and who knew how many cousins by 
now, as *their* family, not just hers.  That night, she 
dreamed they sat together on a mountainside, looking over a 
broad valley town, filled with their progeny.  He kissed her 
tenderly, brushing his lips against her temple, and the image 
faded away into a deep, dreamless sleep.